


playing your part (but it’s not my scene)

by allhaunting



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: M/M, Smoking, author ignores a good portion of canon and invents their own cinematic universe, mentions of violence and blood, sad gay desert shit like what else is new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26085508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allhaunting/pseuds/allhaunting
Summary: “He thinks you hate him.”Ghoul coughs, old smoke from earlier trapped in his chest. It’s wet and fucking gross. “Yeah?” He hacks again, worse this time. “Well he isn’t my favorite person right now, that’s for sure.”The shitty part is that it’s a lie and they both know it. Kobra’s nice enough to not call him out though.
Relationships: Fun Ghoul & Kobra Kid (Danger Days), Fun Ghoul/Party Poison (Danger Days)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 71





	playing your part (but it’s not my scene)

**Author's Note:**

> well...this is happening now
> 
> thank you times a trillion billion to katy for letting me be an absolute menace if her DMs you are my muse but also you hurt me daily (i ask for it, i really do) i wouldn’t be making this shit if you didn’t keep me on my toes and inspire me with your own writing! <3
> 
> tags explain pretty much everything you need to know which is very little other than this is crafted from my own personal killjoy cinematic universe. 
> 
> title from sitting, waiting, wishing by jack johnson

”Wanna buy some drugs kid?”

There’s no reason to turn around—Ghoul would know that voice (and the overused phrase that Kobra thinks is the funniest shit he could ever come up with) anywhere.

He’d be a better friend and conjure up a laugh just to see how quickly he can light the guys face up, but he lost the energy for that shit halfway through giving his best friend CPR and maybe even more on the way back home with the blood still stuck to his hair. There’s dirt under his right thumbnail, so he focuses on that for a while, hoping the silence makes room for company.

There’s a quiet shuffle of boots followed by a huff (annoyance? resignation?), then a warm body at Ghoul’s side. Kobra twists himself to sit with his ass right at the edge of the rooftop, long legs dangling over the side. Like a on a swing set, always flying a little too high just to get a rise out of everyone else. Ghoul can’t help but roll his eyes and chew away a grin, worrying his already bruised bottom lip between sharp teeth. The cigarette in his left hand glows dull red where ashes threaten to fall. Before he can be conned into talking about his feelings, Ghoul takes a long drag and let’s it cover his brain in a thick, warm haze. Less thinking is always better.

The minutes pass without much fanfare. If he’s guessing, Ghoul assumes Kobra is creating a buffer zone, testing to see if he’ll have to be the one to dredge up all the ugly shit or if he can quietly puppy dog-eye Ghoul long enough to get his guts all spilled out over the fucking desert.

Guts. Fuck, he can’t think about it, he can’t he can’t he can’t. All that blood...

‘ _Same color as my hair, huh darlin_ ’?’

“Jesus.” He’s far too close to the filter but fuck it, another hit might just burn his lungs enough to distract him from how shit his luck has been running lately. At his side Kobra hums a bit, head tilting up and into the moonlight above.

“Do I need to gear up or are we going to talk about this like normal, well-adjusted people?”

This time Ghoul _does_ laugh. “You just let me know when any of us can qualify as ‘normal’ or ‘well-adjusted’ and I’ll shit you out a golden cow and a million carbons.” A rough shoulder bumps into his own, jarring him from where he remains tucked up within himself, knees pulled up to his chest.

“You know what I mean dickhead. I need to report back to the troops with a halfway clean bill of mental health, so...” Kobra drawls. Of course Party sent his brother out as the bait instead of crawling up to the roof himself to talk this out. Fucking coward. The least he could do is a pull a stitch or two dragging himself up the access ladder. Too bad the only affect that would have is to force Ghoul into sympathetic overdrive, completely forgetting how sad and pissed he is to fawn and dote instead.

Fuck.

“Fine. Tell them I’m peachy. Or tell them to kiss my ass, I don’t care either way. I’m not putting up with the kiddie gloves treatment from you or _him_ tonight.” 

When Kobra doesn’t respond, a wave of guilt fills him and crashes from his belly to his feet. No, it’s not healthy or kind to take this out on the one guy who understands him best in this fucking wasteland, but every time he lets his thoughts drift too far or blinks a tad too slow, everything is just splayed out, replaying on a loop until it almost feels like a movie. Like it happened to someone else. He really wishes it had happened to someone else.

So when Kobra reaches over and draws a cigarette out of Ghoul’s pocket, he doesn’t bitch or say a damn thing. Hopes it works out like a wordless apology, not for everything but at least for snapping. He digs in the same pocket for his lighter and passes it over, another gesture of good faith.

“What do you want me to say, man?” He can hear his voice crack around the edges. “I had his position covered. Jet was coming around the back to secure the final door, you had already put two shots in the back of those dracs heads and we were so close to securing the area I could fucking taste it. But once-a-fucking-gain, Party had to play a wholesome round of ‘good guy martyr’ and toss himself to the wolves. And then I’m the one scrambling in the back seat to get him breathing again and watching him bleed out around my own fucking hands.” He’s not careful enough to get away from it—they’re back there, all four of them, sun hot on their backs like it’s close enough to burn them up into nothing at all, and Party is dying. Closer to it than normal. Ghoul feels deflated. Someone poked a hole in his side and now he’s leaking out air so loud it’s hissing and making his ears ache. He’s begging no one in particular to get them out of this, get Party put back into one piece, when a nasty bubble of blood pops at the corner of the other man’s mouth. He’s choking on his own blood. He’s going to die and there’s no skin left on either of Ghoul’s arms that isn’t flaked in his best friends blood.

“Hey. Hey, Ghoulie, come back to me?” Kobra gently snakes a hand into the narrow space between his legs and arms, hands now clutching at his hair in a desperate attempt to find reality again. It’s a point of warmth, like a tether, the end of the tape reeling. Coming to a close. He can breathe. When he comes back down, Kobra is right there with those warm eyes finding his own.

His palm presses harder. “I know, I know.” It’s a quiet reassurance. Kobra’s good at that—never too much, never overbearing, just good at being there with easy words and a level head. He’s the guy you want when conflict breaks out, whether it’s within their own little island of misfit toys or a rogue group with itchy trigger fingers, the man has a way with the human spirit. Something about his vibrations or whatever. The fortune teller in Zone 3 was probably full of shit anyway.

(That same fortune teller had looked into Ghoul’s eyes, her mouth forming into a what he could only describe as a cartoon frown. “What you want, my dear, is not some impossible feat. You are your own hurdles, and you have set them dangerously high. Don’t overthink it.” When she reached out for one of his hands, he found that she was colder than most folks in the desert run. The other touched his cheek in a soft stroke that by all means should have been comforting but made his stomach feel like it was very suddenly full of lead. Her acrylic nails were the same color as Party’s jacket. He left the crowded tent in a hurry without looking back or asking for answers.)

“Getting twisted up and hiding on the roof isn’t going to make anything better,” Kobra says without a hint of malice, just offers it like the fact it is. Ghoul scruffs his boot on a rougher patch of cement and sighs.

“No, but neither does screaming at anyone, which was my other option.” The fight sort of...leaves him after that. His piss and vinegar fueled fire dulls and leaves him to deal with the wake of his shit. Really, he’s probably just exhausted. Ghoul drops his head onto Kobra’s shoulder with a pathetic look on his face because he’s a damn brat that knows how to push everyone’s buttons.

“Don’t make me get out the healthy coping mechanisms pamphlet again.” Kobra reaches down to flick at the tip of his nose. Only being biologically related to one of the Fab Four doesn’t mean he isn’t the annoying little brother none of them asked for (but love all the same). Ghoul scrunches his face up and swats at the offending hand.

“Is that the same pamphlet that has the birds and the bees talk on the back?”

“Yeah, but it keeps getting stolen and used for jerk-off material.”

“Boo. The drawings aren’t even that hot. I am a man of class and taste, I prefer the half-shredded Penthouse from 1982 where you can only really see half a boob and some dude’s package in a Calvin Klein ad.”

Kobra snorts around his cigarette. “Yeah, you’re a real saint.“

They’re quiet again, which is fine now that it’s comfortable. Ghoul listens to Kobra breathe and to the muted sounds from beneath them where Jet Star is undoubtedly puttering around the kitchen, trying to distract Party and keep him from anxiously picking at fresh stitches. He listens to the sounds of the desert, high whistles of wind picking up sand and carrying it from one zone to the other. A storm brews at the edge of Zone 2—Dr. Death said it wouldn’t hit 6 until the very early morning but the guy doesn’t exactly have a degree in meteorology and from the sounds of the distant thunder, it won’t be long ‘til they’re hunkering down in the diner and forcing themselves to sleep through it. He’ll have to remember to double check the bucket system before calling it a night. (Jet’s water purification system needs an adjustment or two, but if they’re lucky this batch of rain water will last them the rest of the month).

“He thinks you hate him.”

Ghoul coughs, old smoke from earlier trapped in his chest. It’s wet and fucking gross. “Yeah?” He hacks again, worse this time. “Well he isn’t my favorite person right now, that’s for sure.”

The shitty part is that it’s a lie and they both know it. Kobra’s nice enough to not call him out though.

“You saved his life.”

“Oh my god, can we not do this.”

“What? You did! You patched him up in the back of a vehicle going 120 after doing CPR compressions for almost two minutes.”

“I know what you’re doing. It’s not gonna work.”

“He pulled a shithead move and he knows that. There wasn’t a sufficient danger and yet he still went ahead, ray gun blazing, and got his ass handed to him.”

“Jesus, give me that if you’re gonna force me to listen to this,” Ghoul snatches the lit cigarette from between the other man’s fingers and takes a petulant drag, blowing the smoke back into Kobra’s face. To his credit, he doesn’t seem even slightly fazed.

“All I’m saying is that you have every right to be a raging asshole to him, alright? I’m not super thrilled with him and neither is Jet, but we didn’t have to go through what you went through today. You got the short straw, short straw,” he reaches down to ruffle Ghoul’s already messy hair, “so feel free to put glue in his shoes or guilt trip him into letting you pick tunes in the ‘Am for the next week, whatever tickles your fancy. Just...talk to him? Okay? I know we bully you for being the sensitive one but Party’s going out of his mind down there. Started spouting on about how he figured you’d pack your shit and book it to whatever group Pony could find for you.”

And that...? Well. That’s new. Ghoul flicks ash off almost thoughtfully. He knows how melodramatic Party can get—seen it firsthand and in the flesh, when he loses his grip on the finite control he’s managed for all of them and throws it down the drain in favor of colorful, Shakespearean rage—but self pity? Not normally in his wheelhouse. It’s the only reason Ghoul can’t manage to lie to himself and call it emotional manipulation, an easy cop-out to make himself feel better. No, the truth is that it’s genuine and that makes it so much worse.

He groans and flops backwards with a complete and utter lack of grace. “Okay, okay. You win! White flag and all that jazz. I will finish this cigarette that is definitely mine and no one else’s, and then I’ll go make nice. Am I free to wallow for a few more minutes by my lonesome or are you going to continue to berate me?” Judging by the frustratingly pleased smile on Kobra’s face, he knows he’s won, so he works himself into an upright position and dusts off his pants in a “job well done” fashion, snatching up the cigarette (“Hey! What did I say?”) to indulge one last time before making his way back to the access door.

“Hey Ghoulie?”

He flops his head backward, an upside-down Kobra in his line of vision. “Yeah?”

For the first and only time on the rooftop that night, Kobra looks uncomfortable. The set of his brow means he’s battling with himself about something, jaw working like he’s fighting to say something but doesn’t want to get it wrong.

“We don’t...um. We don’t have to talk about it,” he says, adding a vague emphasis on the word ‘it,’ “but...if you ever want to...well. Uh. It’s not like I _want_ to talk about it but you can always talk to me about shit, even if it’s weird or, in my personal opinion, gross but—“

“Goodnight Kid,” Ghoul sing-songs loud enough to let Kobra know it’s probably a great time to shut the fuck up and never mention of this ever again, which he gladly accepts as his time to exit back into the diner. The solid steel closes, and once again, Ghoul is alone.

This time it isn’t quite so lonely.

As promised, he finishes the stolen cigarette and makes his way back inside before the desert cold starts to settle in.

Clearly Kobra told Jet they needed to make themselves scarce because it’s just himself and Party when he climbs down the ladder into the side room off the kitchen. His gun is half dismantled on top of the linoleum table, each piece shiny and freshly cleaned, which means that Party has been breaking down and reassembling his ray for the past hour (productive but anxious habit—no worse than Jet biting his nails til they bleed). When Ghoul looks at him, finally gets a real good look at him after avoiding even the threat of their eyes meeting, he can see the skittish animal fear that hangs around like an aura. Step on a twig and watch the thing go running.

His hair is wild and completely fucked. He’s wearing a fresh shirt and sweatpants that are barely hanging on by a thread. The butterfly bandage at his brow is already starting to peel off. Ghoul can tell he’s been chewing the hell out of his bottom lip (oh god, now is not the time to be looking at his lips you fucking moron).

“Hey.” He tests it out in his mouth. A peace offering.

“Hey.” Party says back, less like an answer and more like he’s repeating it back. Like he didn’t hear it right the first time.

“Hey.” He’s softer this time. Ghoul drops the hard edge he’s been keeping on his tongue in favor of the relief that surrender allows. No more gas for the flames, just quiet embers that serve as a reminder of how much it hurt to worry, how much it felt like his own life was ending in that backseat, and the armor falls. A man possessed, he damn near floats through the room until he finds himself in front of Party (eyes so wide, so big and scared and wet) and falls to his knees in front of where he sits. Just like that.

Twenty minutes ago, he still felt like taking a swing at him. Now, he can barely stop himself from crying. (He hadn’t, not even in the moment when a hush fell over the car and Party’s skin went cool under Ghoul’s fingers. But now? He’s afraid if he starts weeping he’ll never fucking stop).

“What the fuck,” Party whispers, sounding mystified—looking the part too. And that’s just kind of it. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing does, really. Not anymore. The only thing Ghoul knows now for sure, down to the core of his being, is that this family is all he has. It’s the only thing that makes any sense at all, the way they found each other and never quite fit together but they made it work and somehow they’re even better than puzzle pieces—they’re integral to the structure. Without Party, they wouldn’t be sound. They’d crumble. _He’d_ crumble. Fuck, maybe he’s crumbling right now.

On his knees at the feet of his best friend (his family, his leader, his fucking enemy somedays), he can’t come up with any of the words he’d rehearsed before. Empty handed. Cards are on the table and they’re all 2s and 7s. Nothing worth fighting about...

So he lays his head in his best friend’s lap because it feels right. He’s so careful, he doesn’t even let his hair brush at the careful bandages around Party’s middle. Just presses the side of his face against the soft cotton covering the other man’s legs and lets himself go loose limbed.

An act of worship. A sign of trust. Far as Ghoul figures, the two cross wires and meet at the same place in the end.

Theres a soft “fuck” above him followed by the press of a hand near his temple, moving to the hair at the shell of his ear, pushing it away until it tucks back and falls into where the rest of it spills. He does it over and over again, fingers changing their pattern to stroke closer to the scalp. His touch is still unbearably gentle, like he’s afraid it’s all a dream, capable of shattering if he presses his luck.

“I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Ghoul shushes him and reaches for the hand in his hair to tangle those fingers in his own. Brings them down to his mouth and just presses dry lips to where they’re intertwined.

“We’re not doing that tonight, okay?”

“I am, though. I am, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have—“

“Just. Let me, please? Let me have this. We don’t have to fight. I don’t want to, not tonight. Maybe not ever. Who fucking knows. I just want this right now.” He emphasizes what ‘this’ is by pressing his lips to their hands again, and Party goes silent above him. It’s a small victory.

Ghoul may have one hand captured for his own use, but Party still has a perfectly good left hand to put to use. He traces the sides of his fingers along Ghoul’s cheek, avoiding the blooming bruise that travels into his hairline from where he took a sucker punch after it became clear that someone wasn’t going to stick to the original plan. Party says his sorries in the silence. Let’s his hands do the talking. It’s more than enough for Ghoul, embarrassing as it is to admit—his knees ache and his foot is falling asleep from the angle of the position, but if he’s honest with himself, he could fall asleep like this every night of his life.

Ghoul takes his fill for now. He won’t be greedy, but he’ll take what he can have and he’ll hold onto it for as long as his memory lets him.

He drifts off to the feeling of a single thumb smoothing over his brow over and over again.


End file.
